Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

...Another Thing to Fall: Part Two

TW: Basically everything

August 1921

The Commodore's Mansion

The sound of the knocker echoed through the marble foyer of the mansion. Gillian roused herself from the divan, where she lay reading The Good Bad Girl. Being alone was not Gillian's preferred state of being. The excitement of the men coming over to confer with Jimmy, spending time with Jimmy, playing with Tommy, feeling Charlie Luciano's eyes on her whenever he entered the house... that's what Gillian preferred.

Last night she'd felt like the loneliest person in the whole world. Jimmy hadn't been by in days, so she'd gone down to the Blenheim. The young man in the lobby reminded her of Jimmy, of course, but also of Charlie. He looked so much like Jimmy with his floppy blond hair and soft pouty lips, but the power and ambition that hummed through his young, hard body was all Charlie Touching him was like putting a damp finger over a live socket.

Perhaps the person at the door was that delightful boy, Mr. Bud Matheson, coming to pay a proper call.

Gillian smoothed her hair as she glided towards the door.

"Clara," Gillian said, hardly believing who stood on her portico.

Gillian stepped aside, silently assessing her as she walked in. A white and blue pinafore dress clearly made to be worn at home and certainly not when out in the evening. The bob, which Gillian had to admit suited her, looked like Clara hadn't bothered to brush it. The engagement ring on her left hand was pretty enough, Gillian supposed, but certainly not as impressive as the one Clara wore when she was intended for Darcy Blaine.

"Well, my dear, I can tell two things just by looking at you. That odd husband of yours must be talented in areas I never expected because you look well bedded. It's often the quiet ones, isn't it? " Gillian stepped closer, her head tilting as she regarded the bruises on Clara's beck, wrists, and ankles. "However, I certainly wouldn't have expected him to tie you down and choke you this early in the marriage."

"My father had me kidnapped off Jimmy's porch and tossed into an insane asylum," Clara said, struggling to keep her voice level.

"Why did no one bring me Tommy?" Gillian cried.

"A friend of mine watched him, Jimmy thought he'd be safer out of Atlantic City." Clara studied Gillian, and saw the barely repressed rage. "Gillian, I know you are angry at me."

"Whatever gave you that impression? When you set it up so that Leander thought I killed the dear Commodore? When you took Tommy from his grandmother's care and manipulated Jimmy into thinking I'm not fit to be around my grandson?"

She was there to ask Gillian to tell her the truth, but that meant she could not force Gillian to look at the truth of why Clara refused to allow her near Tommy. But she had to make Gillian see.

"Listen to me, Gillian. My father had me committed. He got me out of the way. And then he came to a room where I had been tortured, where I was tied down to a bed, and told me Richard and Jimmy were dead. No one knew where I was. It was happenstance that they figured out where I was, that Leander was able to free me. But that doesn't mean my father won't attempt the rest of his plan. You must understand this-Father is planning on killing Jimmy and Richard."

Gillian gasped and turned away. "Clara, you are hysterical. Nucky would never. He loves Jimmy like a son, he's always viewed him as..."

"You convinced Jimmy to order a hit on my father. That rather changed the father/son dynamic. This wasn't a game. There are consequences."

Tommy could be hers, Gillian thought. Clara would have no claim. Bud Matheson would make a good father, they could raise the boy the way she wanted him to...